“Their mother, of course, is dead, and he thinks he will die soon. I hear from others that how he lives at all is a wonder, though they think him likely to go on living; but he wishes me to take the guardianship of his children——”
“And you have accepted?”
“No, I have not accepted. That was too much to do, without your approval at least: even with it I doubt if I could take such a responsibility. It is not so bad as that. But I have pledged myself to ask them to Rosmore, for a long visit, to make their acquaintance thoroughly. They are young people who are, according to their slang, up to everything. I have been in great doubt since, whether it would be a good thing for—our two.”
James Rowland’s eyes flashed again. After all there are some things which the experiences of a lifetime cannot do away with. As a point of fact, he knew well enough that the higher classes as he had seen them, chiefly in India, were fundamentally not a bit superior to the lower classes as he knew them by more intimate experience; and yet, risen from the ranks as he was, it gave him the strangest sensation of pleasure to hear that two young aristocrats, children of Society, “up to everything,” were about to become his guests. Even the flavour of something a little wrong which was conveyed in these words, rather heightened than diminished the pleasure. A good thing for—our two. Surely it would be a good thing: it would teach them manners far more effectually than if they were to observe their father’s ways to the end of the chapter. It would smarten up Archie, and let him see what a young man should look like in his new sphere.
“My dear,” he said, “if that is all you are in doubt about, I think you may set your mind at rest. Two young people who are up to everything, will probably find it very dull at Rosmore; but so far as we are concerned, and the two—it can be nothing but an advantage. Ask as many people as you like: there is plenty of room in the house, and there will be plenty of carriages and horses, and plenty of things to see, though there is nothing to do, as Archie says.”
“That is a very advanced thing for Archie to say: it is the fashionable complaint.”
“Is it?” said Rowland, brightening more and more. He began to think that perhaps he had been too severe upon the young people, that his anxiety had made him see blemishes which perhaps did not exist. It was quite possible that well-made clothes, and a little money in his pocket, would make entirely a different figure of Archie; and little May—well perhaps little May wanted still less. She was as sharp as a needle. She would pick up everything without letting it be seen that she did not know it to begin with. The thought flashed through his mind that in a week she would have made herself an exact copy of Evelyn, and what could a girl do better than that? Marion was not like her own mother at all; she had not those eyes which gave Archie, though he did not know it, so much power. But she was very clever: she could make herself whatever she wanted to be.
The Rowlands had a great deal before them in the few days which they were to spend in London, before going, as Mr. Rowland proudly said, home. There were a great many things still to buy, which could be got only in town, though the Glasgow people had been indignantly sure that nothing was to be had in London (to call London town, was an arrogance which was not to be endured) which could not be much better procured in Glasgow. Rowland, however, was precisely the man to be of a contrary opinion, and he had a list as long as his arm of things that were still wanted. Plate, for one inconsiderable item, and carriages on which Evelyn’s judgment was necessary, and for which orders had to be given at once. He approved of her purchases, but thought them far too few and unimportant. “I believe you are afraid of spending money,” he said, with a long rich laugh. This rich laugh of contempt at all small economies and insignificant expenditure is offensive in many people, but it was not offensive in James Rowland—perhaps, indeed, to the wives of the millionaires, who are thus allowed carte blanche, and egged on in the way of pleasant extravagance, it is never offensive. Evelyn entered into the joke of being niggardly, of spending too little. “As if there was not enough to come and go upon,” he said, with perfect satisfaction. When any one was by, especially any one who was not rich, who could not afford these liberalities, she might blush a little and restrain with a look, or a touch upon his arm, the large utterances of her good man; but when they were alone, she did not find it offensive. She went with him from one shop to another, quite pleased with herself and him. He was really a satisfactory person to go shopping with. He found nothing too costly so long as it was good, and threw over cheap things with a fine contempt that was refreshing to behold, especially to one who for a long time had been obliged to take cheapness much into consideration. One day he took her into Christie’s, and bade her look if there was anything good enough for her boudoir at home, and stood by smiling with pride in his wife’s taste and superior knowledge, while she was inspecting those treasures which he declared he did not understand. But he did understand bric-a-brac, it turned out, much better than Evelyn did, though perhaps his taste in pictures was not so pure.
Thus the days passed by; and though those pleasures depended very much on the depth of Mr. Rowland’s purse, they could scarcely be called vulgar pleasures, although Evelyn sometimes at the end of the day blushed to think how she had enjoyed herself. Was it the fact of spending money, an operation which in itself seemed to give pleasure to her husband, or was it the acquisition of so many valuable and beautiful things which was delightful? It was complicated, as everything human is, with the contrast of previous life, with the pleasure of pleasing him by being pleased herself, even perhaps a little by the obsequious respect by which their progress was attended. This was a poor view, and we are poor creatures, the best of us—for there was something even in that. As for the purchases themselves, Evelyn knew that a cracked pot, a scrap of an old picture, a bit of clumsy carving, was capable of giving quite as much pleasure as all the treasures of art which accumulated in their rooms at the hotel. Happily there is compensation in all things, and the highest of all delights, in bric-a-brac at least, is not to him who buys whatever strikes his fancy, regardless of expenses, but to him who “picks up” an unexpected gem, for a few pence or shillings, in some ignoble corner where no such treasure could be suspected to be.
And they dined out in the evenings, at the Leightons, of course, and at other places where the great railway man found himself a sort of lion, to his great astonishment, where he expected modestly to be received, chiefly on his wife’s account, in spheres which were not his. In this point of view Mr. Rowland was delighted, and Evelyn was as proud of her husband as he could be of her, which was saying a great deal. Like many other people in this world, Rowland was not in the least vain of the real work he had done. He was aware that he had been very lucky in many things, in the means he had employed, in the curious natural facilities which always came in his way; but his own skill and patience and thought did not seem to come into his mind as deserving of special distinction. “Oh, of course, since it was my business, I tried to do it the best I could,” he said, as if that were the most natural thing in the world. It was his assistants who were the wonderful fellows; he was so fortunate in always getting hold of the best men; no man but had been true to him, as Brutus says. Evelyn sat by and listened with such light in her eyes that her friend, Lady Leighton, looked at her in wonder. “Why, you are in love with him!” said that woman of the world.